Justin Thomas won last weekend, in dramatic fashion, and would be the favorite if the course didn’t line up so well with Dustin Johnson’s many skills. Jason Day also isn’t to be counted out: the 2015 champion is quietly having a great year and is due for another great result.

Dustin Johnson at +800?

The immensely boring man at the top of the OWGR leaderboard right now is listed at +800 to win at Bellerive, and I think that’s a soft number.

Tiger Woods’ run from 2004-2009 was the most dominant run in the history of golf, and cemented his reputation as the best golfer in history. Here’s how Dustin Johnson’s performance in 2018 stacks up:

Player

Strokes Gained, Total

SG, Off the Tee

SG, Approach

SG, Around Green

SG, Putting

Tiger Woods, 2004-2009

+2.89

+0.58

+1.34

+0.24

+0.73

Dustin Johnson, 2018

+2.729

+1.136

+0.794

+0.232

+0.567

It’s not a bad comparison, and it’s the closest to peak Tiger anyone’s ever got. The really scary part is when you start adding up tee-to-green stats, the sum of strokes gained off-the-tee and strokes gained on approach.

Player

Strokes Gained, Tee-to-Green

Dustin Johnson, 2018

+1.93

Tiger Woods, 2004-2009

+1.92

DJ and Tiger Woods are getting to the green in different ways: Dustin Johnson is more effective off the tee and Tiger is better on approach. However, Dustin Johnson is slightly more effective when you combine those two skills.

How Does Bellerive Suit Dustin Johnson?

We can’t be sure because the course hasn’t hosted a PGA Tour event since 2004 (The BMW Championship) and it was redesigned in 2005 by Rees Jones. We do know, however, that it’s long (almost 7,500 yards from the tips), has long par fours (the tenth is 519 yards), and that the greens are unusually soft this week. Add this all up and you get Dustin Johnson, the world’s leading proponent of bomb and gouge.

Brendan Porath has a great write-up of Tiger’s last best chance to win a 15th major on SBNation, and you should read it.

How will Tiger do this weekend? Hopefully better than last weekend, in which he shot a bunch of 73s and disappointed everyone. His start was promising, 66 and 68 are encouraging, but he’ll need four good rounds to win this weekend. I wouldn’t bet on him, you’ll just never get fair odds, but I wouldn’t count him out, either.

Alex studied political science in university but spent most of that time watching college football. Covered sports betting for this site from 2017-2019. Avid tennis player, golf nut, and motorsports nerd. Career .600 against Ryan Murphy in NBA Jam: Tournament Edition.

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